The invention relates to an agricultural working machine.
The term “agricultural working machine” is to be broadly understood in the present case. It includes not only harvesting machines such as combine harvesters and forage harvesters, but also towing vehicles such as tractors, or the like.
Within the scope of the increasing automation of agricultural working machines, such machines are now frequently equipped with camera systems and other sensor systems, in order to assist the operator during driving and in performing agricultural work. In particular, agricultural working units of the agricultural working machine, i.e., components and devices, in particular mounted devices utilized for performing or assisting in agricultural work, can be monitored and controlled in this way.
A known agricultural working machine (U.S. Pat. No. 8,712,144 B2), on which the invention is based, is equipped with a camera system comprising a 3D camera which detects the crop field, in particular ahead of the agricultural working machine, and can generate corresponding 3D information. For this purpose, the 3D camera comprises two camera lenses, via which stereoscopic image pairs can be recorded along two different viewing axes. In this case, the two images axes each proceed from the optical center of the particular camera lens and each extend in one viewing direction. The two camera lenses and, therefore, the optical centers thereof are situated on a so-called baseline in this case, which extends in a horizontal plane. The horizontal plane is relative to the agricultural working machine and extends in parallel to the footprint thereof. In this related art, the optical centers are therefore situated next to each other in a direction which extends in parallel to the surface of the ground to be worked.
The 3D camera of the known agricultural working machine is suitable for scanning the crop field in the direction of travel and for generating 3D information (information regarding the width, height, and depth of objects and/or between objects) therefrom. However, if rows of plants are to be traveled along, for example in order to work the ground between the rows of plants, the detection of the rows of plants or their position is relatively imprecise, since the camera lenses detect the particular row of plants from different directions due to the distance between the camera lenses, i.e., the so-called base. This results in a certain fuzziness of the recorded image and, therefore, an inaccuracy in the 3D information. This, in turn, affects the accuracy of the working of the crop field with the particular agricultural working unit, for example a mechanical hoe or a cultivator. The accuracy is additionally reduced by harmful plants which grow around the useful plants, in particular when the height of the harmful plants is similar to that of the useful plants.